Organizations such as online retailers, Internet service providers, search providers, financial institutions, universities, and other computing-intensive organizations often conduct computer operations from large scale computing facilities. Such computing facilities may house a large number of servers, storage devices, network appliances, and other computer equipment to store, process, and communicate data related to an organization's operations. A computer room of a computing facility may include many racks housing any number of servers, storage devices, other computing devices, and associated computer equipment. The computing devices may generate a large amount of waste heat during their operations. For example, a motherboard of a computing device may include a central processing unit that generates heat. As another example, mass storage devices may include hard disk drives comprising motors or other components that generate heat during their operation. At least a portion of this heat is removed from the vicinity of the devices to enable the devices to continue operating. The amount of heat generated by the central processing units, hard disk drives, or other components within a computer room may be substantial and may lead to operational challenges.
The various embodiments described herein are susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms. Specific embodiments are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the disclosure to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.